I'm upgrading from a Ryzen 5 3500X and am deciding between a Ryzen 5 5600 for about $130 and a Ryzen 5 5500 for about $95. My A520 motherboard is limited to PCIe 3.0, and replacing it isn't realistic right now. I'm also using an RX 6600, mainly at 1080p. Since both processors would run on this board, does PCIe 3.0 make the 5500 the better value, or is the 5600 still worth the extra $35?
3 Answers
Both processors can pair well with an RX 6600, but the 5600 is noticeably faster overall. The 5500 uses less money and should perform fine today, while the 5600 is worth considering if you might buy a faster GPU later. PCIe 3.0 shouldn’t be the deciding factor here.
I’d go with the Ryzen 5 5600 even on a PCIe 3.0 motherboard. PCIe 3.0 doesn’t reduce its performance enough to make it worse than the 5500, and the 5600 has twice the L3 cache. That generally helps with gaming and gives you more headroom if you upgrade your graphics card later.
The Ryzen 5 5500 is the better budget choice if you’re certain you’ll keep the RX 6600 and play at 1080p. It should be enough for that GPU, and the difference from the 5600 may not be huge in many games. Just remember to update the motherboard BIOS while the 3500X is still installed before swapping CPUs.
The 5500 is still a meaningful upgrade in core and thread count, but it’s not dramatically faster than a Ryzen 5 3500X. The 5600 is the stronger long-term option.
They’re both 65W chips, so a decent A520 board should be able to handle either one without power-delivery concerns.